April 14, 2014

That's pretty awesome to hear the good things about the new ward. Its good to hear that you guys are having a good time. And you will be able to see the temple be constructed in Meridian!

 My area is Rio Verde. It is a city in the state of Goias. I think there are about 16 missionaries here in the city. We are serving in the Bandeirante area. It is pretty good. I thought that we only needed 8 more priesthood but I think we need 30 more priesthood and a attendance of 100 in the Branch. This last week there were almost 50. Normally there are 80 but I think a lot of people were out of town.

The baptism of that one woman Marta didn't happen yet. She is a seamstress and is really busy. She sewes underwear for a fair that happens every week. She gets paid about $0.50 for every piece. But they turn around and sell them for $17. A bit unjust?  So she was always working and didn't have time to meet with the missionaries. The city cut her water because she didn't have money to pay the water. She worked a lot so that they wouldn't cut the power too because if they do that, she wont have power to work.I hope that she will be baptized here pretty soon.

There was another person that will be baptized shortly too in Caldas Novas. We were walking down the street and Elder Srur talked to this man smoking something. He was very smiley and very happy. (identified what he was smoking) We asked if he had time to hear a lesson. He invited us in and we started talking and sharing a lesson. His sister just returned from the US and asked where I was from. I said Colorado. She said that she wants to live there because a certain drug was legalized there.:( I wanted to leave right then, but we finished the lesson. He went to church by himself that week and we marked a baptism date for him the last week I was in Caldas. Elder Srur got him to stop smoking, and he will be baptized in a few weeks or maybe next week. It is amazing that this gospel really is for everyone and every type of person. 

But we had a baptism in our area the other day. Her name is Luzia. She is 30 years old and has 3 little kids. It was fun to prepare her for her baptism. The branch helped a lot. Now we are focusing on finding families to teach. When we are talking to people in the street, we ask them if they have a family. They normally say yes. Then we ask them how long they have been married? Then they say a few years. Then we ask them if it was a big party in a church or just in the court house. Then the majority of them say they just live together. It is hard to find people that actually are married legally. But the Lord is always putting someone in our path.

When ever we find people that are actually married, we get supper happy! At times over excited! haha This week I got an email from Elder Cavalcante in Iprianga and a family that we taught got married this week, then were baptized! I was pretty excited to hear that!

This week we had a zone conference and it was really good. I learned a lot. It was fun to apply the things that we learned in or teaching. I felt that we improved a lot. They had a lot of cool demonstrations. 

I will pray for Dad to get more work. I hope everything is going well there. It sounds like you guys are having fun!

Have an awesome week! I am always praying for you!!
Love, 

Elder Wild

These are the photos of the people we taught in Jan. and Elder Calvacante got them married and baptized in the last week of his mission!